The Advantages of Having Business Teams Use Jira Service Desk

Every team needs a service desk. Whether they are internal or external we all have customers. And we all have processes - whether managing a reimbursement request, granting more space on a common drive or processing an employee’s request for time off - that are repeated again and again. There are three principle advantages of handling these kinds of processes in a service desk.

Enhanced efficiency - These relatively small processes can end up taking large amounts of time. Employing tools like queues, access to a knowledge base and automatic notifications means requests can be fulfilled faster, freeing up staff to concentrate on higher value work.

Enhanced service - Those same features make things better on the customer’s end. Processes are now visible and the customer can check the status without interrupting the very people who are busy trying to process their request. Approvals can be handled without clogging up someone’s inbox or creating a bottleneck. Customers can access a knowledge base and at times solve their own problems.

Enhanced visibility - Ever feel like no one notices what you do until you stop doing it? Bringing business processes into a service desk is way to make all of those time-consuming little things visible. Not only can you see them, now you can measure them. The analytics made possible by using a tool like Jira Service Desk mean team leaders can now see how frequently certain request types are received and how much time is needed to fulfill them. They can therefore, anticipate the demand and allocate resources (staff time) accordingly. This will result in even greater efficiency, which will once again free up your specialist to focus their expertise on higher value work.

Non-tech teams may balk at the thought of “tickets” or “issues,” but the idea of greater efficiency, better customer support and easy access to analytics will resonate. If you’re already using Jira Service Desk for technology support, you also have the advantage offering one place for your employees to go whenever they need to place a request - regardless of whether it’s for changing light bulb or changing a server. If processes have the same Jira workflow, issues can be moved from one team to another when appropriate.

Making Jira Service Desk Your Own

Jira Service Desk is relatively nice looking, but it may not match up with your organization’s brand. You have a couple of options for branding your customer portal.

Available in JSD - Jira Service Desk lets you customize your portal with your organizations logo, colors and banner. Additionally, the portal can now be set to any one of 20 languages.

RefinedWiki - You can take your branding and customization even further using the app from RefinedWiki. Along with your logo, colors and banner, the app lets you adjust the layout of your portal, add announcements, list recommended links (which may or may not be part of your internal knowledge base) and customize your search and navigation.

As of this writing, the RefinedWiki app for JSD is available for server customers. The cloud version will be coming soon.

Simplifying the Conversion

If all that sounds great, but you’re dreading the thought of all of those custom fields that your business teams are bound to ask for, we can help. The ProForma app lets teams build/customize forms that attach to Jira issues. This means that teams can collect precisely the information they need for a given request type without the need for custom fields. Bringing business teams in JSD is a win for everyone, and it doesn’t have to be painful.